Do genetically engineered Christmas carols make you sick?
NorthCascades
Posts: 10,968 Member
in Chit-Chat
http://gator995.com/a-scientist-says-hes-engineered-the-perfect-christmas-song/
A musicologist at the Boston Conservatory named Dr. Joe Bennett says he has engineered the perfect Christmas song after analyzing 200 Christmas songs.
From his studies and scores of data he found it was important to use words like “Santa”, “snow”, “home”, “peace”, and “love”, but most importantly the word “Christmas”. The song needed to be played in a major key, have an average tempo of 115 beats per minute, and feature plenty of sleigh bells.
Using all of his data, he engineered a song called “Love’s Not Just For Christmas“, which he says is the, quote, “happiest Christmas song ever.”
A musicologist at the Boston Conservatory named Dr. Joe Bennett says he has engineered the perfect Christmas song after analyzing 200 Christmas songs.
From his studies and scores of data he found it was important to use words like “Santa”, “snow”, “home”, “peace”, and “love”, but most importantly the word “Christmas”. The song needed to be played in a major key, have an average tempo of 115 beats per minute, and feature plenty of sleigh bells.
Using all of his data, he engineered a song called “Love’s Not Just For Christmas“, which he says is the, quote, “happiest Christmas song ever.”
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<looks over shoulder to see if there is a creepy Santa hovering nearby>8
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I had to leave Target the other day, without the things I went in for, because of their atrocious country twang Christmas carols. On the way out I told the greeter he had my sympathies and to call his union.8
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Oh sorry, I couldn't last the whole song. I haven't moved past things like Away in a Manger though.
Cheers, h.2 -
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This is gonna sound bah humbug but.. christmas is my most hated holiday, I don't like any christmas music, i don't decorate, i don't do nothin. My boyfriend had to drag me to his tree just to put 1 decoration on it which he bought for me specifically, a rainbow unicorn.. other then that.. meh1
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There is nothing wrong with all of the traditional Christmas music. Trying to manufacture false cheer just makes it sound like Stepford music. It's awful and overly pop sounding. I couldn't last more than a few seconds of it.3
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I love traditional Christmas music. At this time of year I prefer more somber Advent music, too, although I realize there is no longer any battle against just celebrating Christmas in advance. I dislike most non traditional happy Christmas songs or Santa-related songs and anything super kitchy/overly country (I don't dislike country music in general or country singer renditions of traditional carols, and I quite like some of these: http://www.citypages.com/music/the-ten-most-depressing-country-christmas-songs-6622891). I also like lots of not especially pop alternative versions of songs or new songs (love the Low Christmas album). Haven't listened to the song which is the subject of this thread and I reserve the right to change my mind on any song.
(My secret shame is that Last Christmas now always makes me happy when I hear it.)4 -
I prefer the more traditional Christmas music (I also prefer to wait until about a week before Christmas to listen to it!), with the exception of The Christmas Shoes...my favorite Christmas song.3
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MotherOfSharpei wrote: »I prefer the more traditional Christmas music (I also prefer to wait until about a week before Christmas to listen to it!), with the exception of The Christmas Shoes...my favorite Christmas song.
Oh, that's too funny - I absolutely LOATHE "Christmas Shoes." It just strikes me as soooo fake!2 -
I didn't click the link posted by the OP yet, but I don't care much for Christmas music either. Every year is the same, same old stuff. It is also annoying when the stores and radios start playing Christmas music in November. I know that is a marketing tool to make you think in the Season and buy more stuff. It doesn't work for me. I buy what I had planned and can afford, but the music turns me off.
Few years ago my Pilates instructor decided to teach the class with fast paced Christmas music starting before Thanksgiving. I didn't take any class with her during the holiday season. How can somebody be inspired and motivated to work out listening to those songs? Not me, for sure!
I live in southern California (away from the fires), our temperature has been fluctuating between the mid 70s to the low 80s and very sunny. Our gardens are full of flowers, so Christmas music talking about sleds, snow, and winter stuff doesn't do much for me.0 -
My old office was located in a strip mall where the landlord put on a Christmas CD in a repeat loop. It was five different versions of "Greensleeves". It's a miracle I did not rip off my ears.3
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interesting, I have always preferred the slower more hymn like Christmas songs than the upbeat ones. Playing an instrument in middle school and high school gave me a special loathing for stupid, repetitive Christmas music.1
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I like the classics...
I don't listen to a ton of Christmas music though...usually have it on while we're decorating the tree or playing lightly in the background if we're having a holiday party or something.
I can only take so much and by the time Christmas passes, I'm pretty over the Christmas music.0 -
cwolfman13 wrote: »I like the classics...
I don't listen to a ton of Christmas music though...usually have it on while we're decorating the tree or playing lightly in the background if we're having a holiday party or something.
I can only take so much and by the time Christmas passes, I'm pretty over the Christmas music.
We play it when we're making Christmas cookies. That's pretty much it.
I get my fill when I go grocery shopping. The supermarket starts playing it on Black Friday and doesn't stop until New Year's. It's awful. In their defense, they play the good old stuff, though.0 -
Unfortunately I drive to and from work, which means I fill my stuck in traffic time by trying to find something on the radio work listening to. Carols have taken over two radio stations. The old ones are nostalgic. The new ones, there are so many awful recordings.0
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NorthCascades wrote: »Unfortunately I drive to and from work, which means I fill my stuck in traffic time by trying to find something on the radio work listening to. Carols have taken over two radio stations. The old ones are nostalgic. The new ones, there are so many awful recordings.
I'm not a huge fan of a whole season of Christmas music (if I had my way, I'd listen to Christmas music on Christmas Eve and not for two whole months), but I really dislike new Christmas music. So many of them are just covers of songs that don't need new versions (IMO) or terrible new songs. Just . . . no.1 -
I'd call them "cynical cash grabs" personally...2
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NorthCascades wrote: »I'd call them "cynical cash grabs" personally...
It's hard to think of what else to call them when you hear the 9 millionth cover of "Winter Wonderland."2 -
Yeah, or Insane Clown Posse singing I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas.1
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In a similar vein, I visited the SkyTree in Tokyo about this time last year. The PPAP song by Pikotaro was really popular then, and the gift shop area had it playing on a constant loop. It's a very good thing that firearms are hard to come by there.2
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About thirteen years ago, I worked in a lingerie store in a mall over the Christmas season. We had one 80 minute CD provided by corporate, which played from 9 AM to 10 PM from November 1 until New Years' Day, comprised of pop covers of traditional holiday songs, along with a few manufactured ones, like Brittany Spears' "My Only Wish".
I have never been, before or since, so close to a complete mental breakdown as I was by December 26 that year, and to this day, I cannot hear any of the ~16 songs on that CD without feeling tears spring up from the remembrance of spending an hour tucking tiny tags into size-ordered stacks of glittery red g-strings only to have a customer walk in, grab a handful, literally throw them across the table, then go back for the stack of "Naughty List" Brazilian cheeky cuts. I still remember every line of every one of those songs since they played 8+ times a day every day I worked for two months straight.
Yes, genetically engineered Christmas carols can make you sick. Or at least send you careening back into memories of crying in a fluorescent-lit stockroom because there were no more Mrs. Claus bustier sets left in XL and the lady in the dressing room was going to verbally abuse you for another ten minutes once you broke the news.
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"Love's not just for Christmas"? That doesn't sound Christmasy at all.
The title of the song to me sounds like some old aunt who never has visitors from family during the year, and then at Christmas time at the family get together after a couple of eggnogs she says "love isn't just for christmas! Why can't you visit me on my damn birthday?!?"
As to the music, it just sounded like generic word mashing. I don't think I could remember a single lyric (unless the title was in there of course).
ETA: In response to thread topic; I think our small sample size mfp thread says yes. Any statisticians want to P value that for us?
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lemurcat12 wrote: »I love traditional Christmas music. At this time of year I prefer more somber Advent music, too, although I realize there is no longer any battle against just celebrating Christmas in advance. I dislike most non traditional happy Christmas songs or Santa-related songs and anything super kitchy/overly country (I don't dislike country music in general or country singer renditions of traditional carols, and I quite like some of these: http://www.citypages.com/music/the-ten-most-depressing-country-christmas-songs-6622891). I also like lots of not especially pop alternative versions of songs or new songs (love the Low Christmas album). Haven't listened to the song which is the subject of this thread and I reserve the right to change my mind on any song.
(My secret shame is that Last Christmas now always makes me happy when I hear it.)
Depressing??!?!!
I love "Christmas in Prison", if only because it has what I consider some of the best love song lyrics ever:She reminds me of a chess game with someone I admire,
Or a picnic in the rain after a prairie fire.
Her heart is as big as this whole g** d**n jail,
And she's sweeter than saccharine at a drugstore sale.
Sooo John Prine.
Other than that, I don't much like Christmas music, other than what Bootsy Collins (once of Parliament Funkadelic) did for (to?) it, such as (audio only):
https://youtu.be/zr5_unrd49M 2 -
When I was a child I always loved "We Three Kings" exactly because it was dark and minor key and not at all like other Christmas songs.4
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I love We Three Kings for that reason. Especially the verses after the first which no one seems to know.2
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NorthCascades wrote: »Yeah, or Insane Clown Posse singing I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas.
"*Kitten* snow, how does that work? Scientists lying to us and making us *kitten*"4 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »I love We Three Kings for that reason. Especially the verses after the first which no one seems to know.
Like "sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying"? Yup! Just gives me the warm fuzzies all over ;D2 -
Yes, it does. Then again, the only Christmas song I enjoy is Fairy tale of New York - The Pogues.
Seeing the replies in this thread I think he might need to reconsider his research methods....3 -
Give me "Silent Night" and that to me is the perfect song. It makes me cry every year and I'm in my sixties. So I've heard it a time or two.
I like some of the new stuff, though.
Not listening to your featured song, NC. I believe MFP has spoken. 4 -
I literally just lost the Drummer Boy game (avoid hearing it from Thanksgiving to Christmas) because a coworker (who I loathe anyway) insists on playing Christmas music every. Day. For the entirely of his shift. There are not 8 hours worth of unique Christmas carols (particularly week after week). Also we're a state-run facility and probably shouldn't be playing them in areas where the public can hear them (I'm just waiting for the discriminatory lawsuit...we get some crazy people visiting us).0
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